Category Archives: Rant

A post on punctuality

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In the past few weeks, I’ve encountered three persons who treat punctuality as an unimportant and unnoticeable matter. In totality, they wasted about two hours of my time, which is very important and noticeable to me.

I write this post – which will take you less than five minutes to read – to tell you that you do yourself, as well as the people you’re holding up, a grave disservice.And that I won’t hesitate to tell you off right there and then. Perhaps I’ll be nice about it, but I’ll still do it. Also because you deserve it.

I believe most of us want to be upright and good, or at least perceived as such. The imagery of knights continue to inspire many young kids to heroism or at least gentlemanly behavior. Key attributes of a knight would surely include bravery, chivalry and a serious code of honor. But most people probably won’t associate them with punctuality. (In reality, the knights of old were probably a boorish lot.)

It’s unfortunate that King Arthur never spoke at length on getting jousting tournaments to start on time, and I find it even worse that there’s a modern English term “fashionably late”.

Fashion is never late, and late is never in fashion, people.

Punctuality frames peoples’ impression of you so quickly. Think about it, for every minute that you have yet to turn up without a good reason or forewarning, your reputation drops in tandem. When you do finally arrive, do you expect people to treat you with a smile or a scowl?

And conversely, for a person who is consistently on time for meetings and dates, people come to know him as rock-solid reliable when it comes to keeping time.

If you have trouble with punctuality, it might help to get a good wristwatch with fresh batteries.

I’m not sure at which point in my life did I begin to value punctuality as a virtue. But definitely before I started work.

Even as a journalist (where is the norm to be “fashionably late”, a terrible excuse for poor time management and slow typing skills), I abhorred being late for press conferences or interviews. What if I missed a great soundbite? What if I missed an awesome photo opportunity?

Yet the PR industry feeds this behavior by organizing events with the expectation that journalists would turn up 30-60min late. So I would be there on time, and yet have to wait an hour for anything significant to happen.

Times are a changing, folks. With greater workloads, more email and less work-life balance, every minute is more precious than ever. If you’re going to be late, at least inform your receiving party in advance with a quick call or SMS.

Don’t assume people have the spare time to wait for you, or that we accept lateness as a practice.

There’s nothing more rude than a person turning up late without any warning, and then when he does appear, he pretends that there’s absolutely nothing wrong.

I regret to say, I won’t let you continue to think that way.

Ok, my time is up. Thanks for reading.

Of Art, Ads and Naked Men

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I was driving into Orchard Road with the family a few weeks ago when I saw the huge billboard (above, from Mr Brown’s site) from Abercrombie & Fitch. I was so stunned that I took a second look and probably put myself at risk of an accident. It was a black and white image of a rippling male body with his genitals barely hiding from view underneath the low-slung jeans.

I said to Goy: “Wow, that picture is going to cause a few accidents.” but left it at that. After all, the billboard did its job of capturing my attention and the male model does have an amazing body. And it was a very well-taken photograph, never mind that it had little to do with A&F apparel at all – such is the nature of brand advertising.

In recent days, the billboard has become a tabloid-style news story. First it was reported that the Advertising Standards Authority of Singapore (ASAS) had suspended the billboard. Then it came to light that the Authority had no authority to do so, since A&F was not part of its group and not beholden to their bidding (which I found was the more newsworthy bit, rather than the near-naked guy). The Media Authority of Singapore  supported ASAS’ call but said that the industry is self-regulated. In short, nobody can take down the ad except A&F themselves, and I’m sure many ad agencies are rubbing their hands in glee thinking about what they can achieve now with their clients.

I don’t know if they’ll ever get the billboard taken down but I oppose such a move on artistic grounds. Yes, we are a conservative society, but we are also living in a wasteland of mediocre visuals and advertisements. If you’ve ever visited Rome, one of the key attractions is a statue of a very nude man – Michelangelo’s David.

I’ve visited the statue twice, and both times, I’ve just sat there staring at the sheer beauty and perfection of the sculpture. No, I’m not gay, but there is something enthralling about the artistic depiction of a human body. And you don’t see people going “eeeee, that man is naked!” because it is undoubtedly art, and it is not vulgar.

And the Christian fundamentalist shouldn’t wrongly compare the story of Adam and Eve who fell into sin and quickly covered their nakedness in front of God – our Creator made them perfect and unclothed but sin caused them to become self-conscious of their bodies. Man would of course fall greater into sin and lose self-control of their bodies, which is what the Bible warns against repeatedly. Then we should also consider what happens when someone views an image that he purports will make him lose self-control of his body – this is the line drawn between art and pornography.

When it comes to art, everyone has the right to disagree on the interpretation. What is vulgar to someone may seem as virtuoso to another. But art is always judged and weighed in the zeitgeist of the times, and overlaid with common standards of morality and sensibility. It is not surprising to see ASAS’ objection to the ad, but one also must ask: “Are there a lot of people who are upset with the ad?” Personally, I haven’t heard anyone complaining and demanding the billboard’s removal. These sort of images, my dear ASAS, are par for the course these days.

And as a Straits Times forum writer pointed out, there are far more vulgar ads going around that ASAS does nothing about. It’s just that they are all smaller than the billboard in size.

I’m more upset with the general low standards of advertising in Singapore which celebrates the lack of wit, creative expression and artistics standards. Marketing managers are happy to adapt the most boring global visuals they can get from their HQ and just get their media agencies to book the ad space – because they don’t know what they can achieve in creating customer excitement. Most of them have never stepped into Bras Basah’s Basheer Books and flipped through the vast collection of award-winning advertising visuals and graphic art, and thought about doing it better themselves.

I’ll be very clear here: I don’t wear Abercrombie apparel, nor am I a fan. I’m a conservative in many ways, but I also appreciate art deeply. I’ve taken my fair share of sexy fashion photos during my photography days and I hope they weren’t seen as vulgar. I’m also very inspired by the billboard’s abs of steel and I shall do more sit-ups tonight.

If ASAS hasn’t gotten it by now, the whole furor has just given A&F the absolute best advertising in town – public controversy where the advertiser hasn’t really done anything illegal. The more ASAS tries to pull the billboard down, the worse it will look on them, because all A&F did was to put up a thought-provoking visual and it turned out that ASAS is really toothless after all its public statements. Bigger powers may step in, and they will be in turn branded as prudes or overreacting by the younger crowd in Singapore.

It’s always amusing to us media and ex-media alumni how stories are generated in Singapore. Many times, newsmakers do not know when they are exposing themselves to ridicule or embarrassment when they decide to go public with something. Then the media has a field day and the newsmaker wonders how did things go this way.

Just leave the billboard alone folks. A&F will change it when next season’s apparel arrives anyway. So far there haven’t been any car accidents right?

The death of the Transformers

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I had little choice but to watch Transformers 3 : Dark Of The Moon. The kids wanted to watch it, and I wanted to watch it.

For them, it was part of the essential pop culture ritual of their childhood. It’s the Star Wars of their generation.

For me, it was to see if Michael Bay would redeem himself from the mess that was Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen.

Sadly, Michael Bay proved that a leopard cannot change its spots – TF3 was a rehash (albeit energetic one) of all the major action scenes from the first two movies, as well as all his other blockbuster movies. And for me, it was a final nail in the coffin for a great franchise that we’ve known and loved since the early 1980s. Here’s why:

The Transformers is not just about Optimus Prime and Bumblebee

I’ve never understood the heavy weightage placed upon Bumblebee in the Bay movies. In the cartoon, he was always one of the weakest Autobots, and his only role was to be Spike Witwicky’s friend. For goodness sake, he was a obsolete VW Beetle.

Ok, so perhaps in the first movie, the major theme was about A Boy and His Robot (ala Harlon Ellison’s A Boy And His Dog). By the third movie, there was no real relationship left between the yellow bot and the perpetually annoying Shia LeBeouf. Yet the emphasis on Bumblebee continued, even though no fan really gives a hoot about him. Meanwhile, other great characters like Jazz and Ironhide with way more personality are killed off flippantly in the movies.

And to add to that, the Bumblebee toys are awfully difficult to transform. More on that in a while.

The same goes for Optimus as well. The kids of today don’t realize it, but Optimus was killed off in the very first Transformers cartoon movie. I suspect the cartoon writers felt that Optimus was too one-dimensional and needed to be replaced with new leadership (ie. Rodimus Prime). It was a shocking development for us kids then, but man, everyone remembers the death of Optimus till today. When they resurrected him time and time again, it got boring – let the dead lie dead please.

Nevertheless Optimus is always a big fan favorite and has been featured in just about every Transformers spin-off or series.

My point is that these two Autobots do not an entire series make.

There are so many great Transformer characters and storylines on either side of the battle lines. The Bay movies have avoided any focus on the relationships between the Transformers, both within and between the factions. The love-hate relationship between Optimus and Megatron was hardly explored, what more the tension between Optimus and Ultra Magnus, the competition between Blaster and Soundwave (and their respective cassette tape minions), the dumb anger of the Dinobots, the constant quarrels between the Constructicons…the list goes on about the many dynamics from just the very first cartoon alone.

Instead Bay chose to focus on the humans, perhaps to save some CGI budget. Unfortunately, the humans in the Transformer movies have never been impressive or endearing. And when gigantic robots are hitting the hell out of each other, what contributions could puny humans possibly make?

What was sad to see in TF2 and TF3 was how Megatron was written as a “by-the-way” character, or used as a deux ex machina to close a plot loophole. How can you treat the biggest schemer on Cybertron as a cameo? Why would Megatron even bow to the Fallen, given that his ego cannot take the damage?

Less Is More, Especially With Robot Design

What upsets a lot of fans till today is the overly complicated and ugly designs of Bay’s Transformers. Very organic in nature, the bots come off looking more like insects than majestic robots.

And the transformations are now way too complex. One great part about the early cartoons was how gracefully the bots would transform from one form to another. I’m pretty sure they designed the toys before the cartoon characters, and the simplicity shows.

In the movies, the characters were designed to be as difficult to transform as possible, and that also led to an entire series of poorly designed Hasbro toys. The irony is that the Transformers has always been a glorified commercial to sell more toys but the movies have just turned me off the toys instead. I told Isaac that we won’t be buying any more Transformer toys until they get easier to manipulate. I usually struggle up to 30min just to transform a simple Level 3 Transformer figurine.

If you don’t believe me, just head to any OG store these days and you’ll see the big Starscream toy being cleared at bargain prices. The original Starscream was a beautiful copy of the F-15 eagle, in primary American colors no less. The Bay Starscream is an ugly grey Raptor that transforms to an even uglier and dull-looking robot.

The awesome Starscream Masterpiece edition of the original 1980s design.

The Bay version of Starscream. The design ugliness is obvious to any human.

Even today, adults get excited over original Transformer designs such as Soundwave, Devastator, the Aerialbots, Bruticus Maximus and so on. They were simple, but they were always impactful.

There Is No Kindness In This Movie

Call it 1980s simplicity, but the Autobots hardly set out to kill anyone. In the movies, the good guys have become so brutal and unforgiving – Optimus stabs, rips out heads and spinal columns, dismantles faces and so on, with no remorse at all. He is even willing to do in his teacher Sentinel Prime without a pause. Optimus is no hero here, he has simply become an angry robot.

When the good guys do not forgive, what are we teaching our kids?

 

 

 

Maid In Singapore

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The news topic of this week appears to be whether maids should get a legislated day of rest every week. Now I’ll make it clear that I’ve never employed a full-time maid (for my own household), and deliberately so. For the past few years, we’ve relied on a part-time maid who comes in once a week and now that she’s gone home, I’m still mopping the floor like I did when I was 10 years old. I simply don’t want another stranger staying in my house nor deal with her various issues.

That said, a lot of other Singaporean families do employ maids for various reasons. There’s nothing wrong with that, even though it does lead to various side effects like an over-reliance on maids, kids who grow up ordering their maids around, and army boys who can’t carry their own bags. I can sympathize with families with sick elderly folks who need the help of a maid for daily hygiene or exercise, and that is where an extra pair of hands really help.

It is inevitable that the huge population of maids in Singapore will lead to cases where maids get pregnant, work illegally or get into other sorts of trouble. Often, the employer has to bear the frustration of sending the maid home and paying additional money to hire a replacement.

And at the same time, there are many employers who simply don’t know how to manage another person in the house. Too often, we read about maid abuse cases in our media, and despite all the gasps and looks of horror from the audience, the abuse continues to happen whether it is in rich educated households or needy ones.

And you don’t really know if you’ve hired a good or bad worker. We had plenty of trouble with a maid who was hired to look after my mum in her final years, and we were so glad to be rid of her. But I’ve also seen friends who have hired really good people as maids, and saw strong relationships built up over the years.

No matter what, I fully back the proposal for a rest day for maids. As employers, we need to treat our employees the way we want to be treated ourselves. Do unto others, you know.

What strengthened my belief even more are the following letters written to ST Forum in the past few days, arguing why maids shouldn’t be given a day off. I’ve highlighted the sentences that made me seethe, and if you’re an intelligent, un-self-centred, gracious person, you’d immediately understand why. I don’t need to go on a rant with the obvious.

The letter writers have their own perspective on things, but I have only this to say to them – put yourself in the shoes of your own maid before you pen these words down. And no, the pathetic fertility rate has nothing to do with whether your maid has a day off or not.

Who says domestic helpers are overworked?

IT IS true that maids should not be treated differently from other workers, and they need rest (‘Consider law to give maids a day off every week: Halimah’; Monday). But do they really need one weekly day off for that? Do they not rest in the course of their work every day?

My current maid has a day off once a month. Every time she comes back from her outings, she appears even more tired and listless, and needs to recuperate from her outing. When she is not around, both my husband and I, who are teachers, have to juggle with the care of our toddlers (two and three years old), besides catching up with whatever work we have not completed in the week.

Singaporeans work very long hours too and while we do not work officially on weekends, many of us catch up with work on weekday evenings and weekends.

My maid has more than enough time to rest daily, when the kids are napping or when my older one is in kindergarten. My maid is the one who goes to bed by nine every night and my husband and I are the ones who are still up way beyond nine to tuck in our children and catch up with school work.

Are maids really that overworked? The many maids congregating and chatting away happily at my condominium on weekdays present a different picture.

My previous maid met her boyfriend on her day off and even while we were at work. I have also heard of other maids doing part-time work on their days off.

The slew of social problems that will result from a weekly day off is unthinkable.

And think of those taking care of old and disabled people. It will not be easy for someone else to take over their duties when they take their day off.

I urge the Government to consider carefully the many factors at play and the consequences of legislating a day off for maids.

Low Ai Choo (Madam)

More days off may not be in maids’ interest

I REFER to the proposal by Madam Halimah Yacob, Minister of State for Community Development, Youth and Sports, to make it mandatory to give maids a day off every week (‘Consider law to give maids a day off every week: Halimah’; Monday).

As much as employers like myself will like to give our maids a day off per week, we are concerned that it may actually not be in their interest. With four days off a month, they will incur more expenses. Many maids who have a day off a week end up not only sending less money home, and having little or no savings, but also incur debts by borrowing from other maids to cover expenses.

They may also become resentful that their pay is not able to pay for their entertainment on these days off.

Some maids may also work illegally on their days off. This puts them at risk of abuse from those who employ them illegally and also put their legal employers at risk with the law.

Sng Choon Kwee

Spare a thought for working mums

I REFER to Minister of State for Community Development, Youth and Sports Halimah Yacob’s call for legislating a weekly day off for domestic helpers (‘Consider law to give maids a day off every week: Halimah’; Monday).

I urge Madam Halimah to look at the issue from the perspective of an ordinary, Singaporean working mother.

As a mother of a preschooler and an infant, having a domestic helper is probably the best solution for me as I would like to make full use of my hard-earned degree, remain in the competitive workforce and contribute to the nation’s economic growth while supporting the Government’s call to have more babies. Without a domestic helper to look after the children, one of the parents will have to stay at home.

Amid soaring inflation, rocketing housing prices and a dipping total fertility rate, is it appropriate to consider a weekly day off for domestic helpers at this juncture? If the Government would like to hear more babies cry, the answer is a clear no.

Moreover, does having a weekly day off ease the stress and overworking problems faced by domestic helpers? They may have to complete their chores before or after their day off. Essentially, they are left with less time to do the same chores. In this case, a weekly day off seems to worsen the problem.

Instead, inculcating a different mindset that looks at domestic helpers as part of the family may help. When the domestic helper is regarded as part of the family, she feels more comfortable and less likely to be stressed. Do we overwork our family members? No.

With many Singaporean households relying on domestic helpers to keep the house running, any change in the existing legislation is going to affect a large number of people.

It is not assumptive to conclude that a weekly day off for domestic helpers will have a negative impact on the fertility rate and the number of mothers in the workforce.

Fu Sze Sze (Madam)

You can make the Tissue Issue go away

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Story on the Tissue Issue in the Straits Times, 28th Apr 2011

My friends would know that I’ve been strongly against the use of tissue packets to book seats in food courts ever since it first cropped up years ago. Today, several letters were published in The Straits Times on the matter defending both sides of the story:

User defends tissue-booking culture

I HAVE always been puzzled by the complaints about booking foodcourt and hawker centre tables with tissue paper or packets (‘It’s uniquely Singaporean and very rude’; April 26).

Booking by tissue paper is the only functional and practical way for customers to dine at a foodcourt.

The issue is not about a lack of graciousness and politeness. No practical person in a crowded foodcourt would want to buy his food first – for example, a boiling bowl of noodles – before table space is assured.

If the patron comes with a group of people, one or more persons can reserve a table and most patrons usually accept such a practice. The problem arises when the patron is alone. The dilemma is, if she gets the food first, what happens if there is no table space? And if she waits till there is a table space first, who will keep a space for her?

Necessity is the mother of invention and thus, Singaporeans invented the tissue reservation system.

The crux of the matter is that all should agree on a first-come-first-reserved system, whether the reservation is done by a restaurant waiter putting a reserved sign, family and friends sitting at the table, or leaving a handbag or a packet of tissue.

The system should apply even if a patron dines with a group of family or friends. Everyone can order a meal simultaneously and hence finish their meal and leave faster so that others can use the table.

Ho Seng Beng

MR ADAM REUTENS-TAN: ‘Placing a tissue packet to reserve a seat is a flippant act of arrogance and egocentricity (‘An issue with tissue on road to graciousness’ by Mr Francis Cheng; April16). It sends the signal that the one who placed the tissue packet is more important than the one who is patiently waiting for a seat with food in hand. Hawker centres and foodcourts are public areas where it is first-come-first-use; there are no reservations. In fact, leaving a nondescript item such as a packet of tissue may actually constitute littering.’

MR ANTHONY OEI: ‘There is nothing wrong in reserving seats in foodcourts because we do make reservations elsewhere. When a diner finds an empty table at a foodcourt, he is entitled to it and stakes his claim by placing a tissue paper packet, his bag or other articles on it, while he orders his food. Of course, one should be gracious by sharing a table with other diners if one is alone and there is a seat or two to spare. Let us be tolerant and accept that it is all right to reserve seats in foodcourts and that it is not a rude act peculiar to Singapore.’

MR ARTHUR LIM: ‘Enforcement actions should be taken to stamp out such ill habits (‘The tissue issue that won’t go away’; April 28). Why not have a sign to say that the use of tissue packs to reserve tables is prohibited? In the case of a group or couple, one should stay behind so as to inform others, in a civilised manner, that the table is occupied. If one is there alone, there are others like him who are on their own and will wait for a vacant seat. The tissue-reservation habit has nothing to do with culture, but everything to do with being selfish and inconsiderate.’

MS THERESA LOO: ‘The reason this rude and anti-social behaviour is thriving is because we encourage it by not doing anything about it (‘An issue with tissue on road to graciousness’ by Mr Francis Cheng; April 16). I suggest that when we are looking for a table and see tables with packets of tissue on it, we should just gently push the packets aside, sit boldly, and eat our food. This is to show that reserving tables with packets of tissue does not count, is not a rule, and not Singapore’s culture. This is to teach those who are anti-social a lesson in courtesy and decency.’

MR PARRY TAN: ‘The article (‘The tissue issue that won’t go away’; April 28) had quoted someone as saying that she would throw away the tissue packets used to reserve seats. Think about the time wasted should one person in the group have to stay behind just to tell other potential diners that the seats are reserved. A high turnover would result in more seats being available for more people. If everyone were to substitute packets of tissue paper with bags or more substantial and valuable belongings, would this still be considered rude? A packet of tissue paper is a cheap and riskless form of collateral. It is as simple as that.’

 

I think the letters above save me the hassle of writing a long essay on how I feel. But here’s a quick summary anyway:

It’s not intelligent – a pack of tissue paper does not indicate ownership or identification. Anyone can claim that that pack of tissue was his/hers. And when it is thrown away (by cleaners or by other customers), the original owner cannot claim that it was there to begin with.

And for those who argue that it is less risky to use a pack of tissues versus their own handbags, you are already implying that you don’t need people to identify the importance and ownership of your seat reservation.

After all, if the pack is not valuable, I can throw it away for you right? 

It’s not perpetuated by the lonely – unlike what Mr Ho Beng Seng claims, this action is more rampant among groups of people than those who are alone. It is herd mentality at its most ungracious, since they could have asked one of the group to stay behind.

So what happens if you’re alone and have no seat? Either get more friends or gently ask someone if you can occupy the empty seat at their table. I do that all the time and while it’s never fun to sit with strangers, I am visiting the foodcourt to fill my stomach and not be a social butterfly.

And to those in a group who say that reserving seats with human bodies wastes time and increases waiting times at the foodcourt, perhaps you can consider how more considerate it is if you can ask your friend to buy food for you so others can get their seats even faster.

Don’t like the food your friend is ordering for himself? Oh that’s your problem, I can’t help you there. But it still doesn’t give you an excuse to use a tissue paper and make yourself look ungracious and selfish.

Enforcement is unnecessary – Why waste taxpayers’ monies on hiring people just to stop this ungracious action when you can throw away the packets of tissues yourself? Stop having a crutch mentality if you really want Singapore to be a more gracious society, like the old song taught us : “There’s a role for everyone”. And you also make the cleaners’ lives easier.

The bottomline is that I will not hesitate to throw away any packets of tissue paper if I (or my group of friends) need a seat. Because I don’t know who could have possibly done such a silly thing.

Oh wait a minute.

Is throwing away such tissue packs ungracious in itself? An act of intrusion and rudeness against someone else’s system of equality? A disregard for other people’s feelings? Look at this issue both ways and the same arguments will appear, but I believe in the lesser of two evils to generate a greater good – a stop to such unclassy and illogical group behavior. 

How To Survive The Social Media Elections

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GE Tracker shot b

I found out about this cool online tool yesterday – Singapore GE2011 Tracker – which allows anyone to study and dissect online conversations about the General Elections on a day-to-day basis.

According to its makers Swarm and JamiQ :

Singapore General Elections 2011 Tracker is a visualisation project that reflects the true national agenda set by the social nature of online discussions and trends around Singapore’s 2011 General Elections. The goal of the project is to help the public follow the elections by separating the signals from the noise by trending the top topics being discussed and showcasing the top articles being shared. The project looks at news articles, blog posts, and Twitter data to identify the top mentioned keywords and the most shared content.

From this chart, I could see that my 25th April posting on “Nicole Seah and public opinion” was possibly the 6th most shared article in the local socialsphere. Wow, after six years, I’m finally getting some readers!

Then my ego got bashed immediately when I saw that it dropped out of the chart the very next day Open-mouthed smile.

Well, such is the nature of Internet conversations during this critical period, where new topics and fodder for discussions appear just about every day.

Last weekend, Ms Seah was all the rage of town. Today, it’s Vivian Balakrishnan vs Vincent Wijeysingha on gay issues. Tomorrow, I hope someone talks about implementing minimum wage for the poor local cleaners at my district who earn a pittance yet work their hearts out from 6am every day.

Indeed, this tool provides all parties a remarkable insight onto what people “may be discussing” and sharing online. But for me it also raises other longstanding doubts I’ve had about online influence.

The Limits of  Social Media Measurement

I say “may be discussing” because for all the graphical coolness and depth the GE Tracker provides, it is still unable to track Facebook conversations due to the privacy lockdowns. Facebook is still the social media network of choice for most people, given that Twitter is more utilized by a vocal minority and is hampered by its non-visual, 140-character limit.

From a rough estimation of the tracking data on this blog, less than 20% of referrals for the Nicole Seah article were from Twitter. Most of the visits actually came from Facebook referrals. Largely because I use a FB Like button and not a Retweet button (I personally don’t like, and don’t use Twitter very much, because my minimum thought length is longer than 140 characters).

Also, I suspect that less than 50% of the voting population is engaged online. They could be either those who are not online-savvy, or those too busy with work to care. So for these people, perhaps their key source of information is the mainstream media or coffeeshop talk.

Your choice of media inevitably taints your view of the elections. One friend said it best on his Facebook wall. “When I read ST I want to vote opposition; when I read The Online Citizen (especially the comments and its facebook page) I want to vote PAP.”

And for many, when they read Nicole Seah’s FB postings, they probably want her signature too.

A more sobering perspective : Although my article ranked among the top 10 stories of the day, till today, it’s seen about 10,000 unique visitors. That is a mere drop in the total voting population. So what people are actively sharing and reading online, is often unseen by the larger public.

But on the other hand, what should concern the Gahmen and the Opposition is that online opinion leaders tend to be offline influencers as well. And you have a good proportion of the intelligentsia and rabble rousers who make the most noise (Why do you think this site is called Empty Vessel?).

So take the example of Charlie Sheen – you may not follow him on Twitter, but you sure know he’s gone ballistic  from what you’ve heard offline so far.

The bottomline is that one cannot afford to overstate or underestimate the impact of social media. Nicole Seah’s popularity online has forced the mainstream media to give her more coverage, despite obvious cues from SM Goh to move the limelight away.

Geek talk and social media porn aside, I ask…So How?

The Four Obvious Painful Things about this elections were stated out in my earlier post, and are all turning into horrible reality for the election candidates.

Now I can expound on Surviving The Social Media Elections, and this will apply to any PAP or Opposition candidate. Like it or not, people are sharing their voting decisions on the social media networks already.

There is the real world GE, paralleled by an online elections where people have already cast their vote on who they like, dislike, or vehemently hate to death.

Yet I believe you can turn the tide of opinion if you keep getting better at leveraging social media in a sincere and objective way. Everyone can smell insincerity on Facebook from a mile away (ok maybe not everyone).

And this is an ongoing virtual election which will continue way after the paper votes have been cast and locked away. If you want to convince people of your views, it’s an ongoing process of conversation and listening AND replying, not merely “please read my press release that was published in the newspapers.”

Hopefully some of the candidates (and their army of supporters and social media “experts”) will bother to read this lor, because it’s free social media consultation which many agencies will charge you an arm and a leg for. I put it here because what I say here is largely common sense.

And common sense is free of charge, no?

Let’s start with:

1. Don’t assume about your popularity (or unpopularity) rating

Let it be made clear that I don’t dislike the PAP. I don’t like them very much either. Probably more a resigned acceptance of who they are and what they do, with a measure of respect for their capabilities and brainpower. They do deserve credit for what Singapore is today but they are also responsible for the crowded trains that I squeeze in every day.

Now if I were a PAP minister during this elections, I’d be seriously alarmed at what’s happening when I start browsing the Internet. It seems that every major statement a senior politician makes is pounced upon with an unholy vengeance by hundreds of thousands on Twitter and Facebook. If you read my friends’ daily FB postings, you’d think that nobody likes the PAP at all.

As for the Opposition, apart from the key characters like Chen Show Mao, Nicole Seah, Low Thia Khiang et al, my FB friends don’t really care to share anything about the rest or their manifestos.

Of course, this is just a small sampling of the larger audience. My friends would share many of the political leanings and have similar educational backgrounds. My network is NOT indicative of what people think, and they should remember the same for themselves too. Birds of a feather flock together mah.

So what do people really think of the PAP and Opposition in general?

Well, nobody really knows.

  • The mainstream media don’t dare to do any public polls on specific parties or candidates, for fear of appearing partisan or engaging in “crusading journalism”. Or perhaps there aren’t many interns available during this season to do straw polls.
  • Online sites like The Online Citizen and Temasek Review attract the most vehement views (and the worst abuse of grammar).
  • Bloggers are generally unhappy with something before they post about it, and you don’t see anyone blogging to praise the Gahmen for the good things they’ve done. (Just to buck the trend, I’d like to thank the Bishan-Toa Payoh team for the nice upgrading being done to my estate for the past decade, but it would be great if you could also give us a few years of peaceful tranquility instead of constant hammering and drilling and dust.)

The GE Tracker is pretty cool in tracking topics, but like I said, they have limited view of what people are actually saying. Sampling Twitter conversations will not give you the same extrapolation for Facebook discussions. So 5,000 Twitterers could hate Politician X, but it could be 500,000 Facebookers who hate the guy instead. Or they might just like him.

And can you judge the popularity of a person by the number of FB fans that he has? Maybe, but like I said, online popularity may not correlate to offline popularity.

One last bit: most people are cowardly and will not dare to approach politicians directly with their grouses for fear of being identified or “blacklisted”. So when Wong Kan Seng claims few people have approached him on the Mas Selamat issue, it doesn’t mean people aren’t unhappy about it. I’ll remember to bring up the topic if I ever get to see him.

This will lead you to say “Again, so how lah?”. Well….

2. Don’t lock your Facebook Wall. And you shouldn’t have made it open in the first place. So maybe you should just lock it anyway.

I noticed a few key characters locking up their Facebook walls when they were assaulted by the online community. Vivian Balakrishnan’s public FB page received many nasty wall postings (re the Wijeysingha issue) until the admins locked those out, allowing only comments on his actual postings. You can see a screenshot of the Before scenario here and the act of doing so is just making people even more angry.

Not that it’s stopping commentators from whacking him in his older postings.

To begin with, I don’t recommend any public page be open to free wall postings. Nicole Seah’s page has so many happy posters that her actual postings are being drowned out. If she decides to curate her page now by disallowing fan postings, she might appear to be shutting off her audience, when she might just want to focus her communications.

So if your wall is open, keep it open. Or at least explain to people when you prepare to shut it off.

3. Continue posting updates, even when being mauled to death. And make the postings count.

Tin Pei Ling’s FB page seems to have gone pretty quiet since Saturday, an eternity in this short and furious elections period. Who knows what’s going on in her head now, having turned into a target board for so many voters. But hey, if I were TPL, I’d continue posting updates and my personal thoughts to let people know what I’ve been doing in the meantime.

Silence can mean you’re either really busy on the ground, or admitting defeat in the online space. Why, damned if you do, damned if you don’t. But the minute you start a Facebook public profile page, you are committed to updating it in real time and very frequently, so don’t forget that.

Mah Bow Tan did an interesting thing and posted a professionally edited YouTube video on his site to defend his “HDB housing is affordable” stance, around the same time that he locked horns with WP on the housing issue.

Unfortunately, not many people are interested in “liking” him, with only 1,237 likes to date – most of them PAP members (See Point 1). And the video has only seen 345 views on Youtube, quite dismal by any count but hey I watched it!

Well, at least he’s trying.

But what could help is an attempt at generating and continuing a discussion online. Eg. taking a real world HDB buying example from a FB fan and breaking down the numbers to explain why housing is really that affordable. Solid data is unsexy to bring up, but it makes or break one’s case. That’s what he has yet to do in his media speeches and online engagement.

Also, when I say make the postings count, I mean “post something interesting, for goodness sake.” I’ve done blogging and FBing for a long time, so I make it a point not to post anything boring.

But many of these candidates put up such boring posts I want to scream. Why would anyone bother to stay on your page?

4. Do not take the name of Facebook in vain.

It’s not so simple to leverage on Facebook’s branding. Like this physical banner put up by some earnest supporters of MP Irene Ng. I’m sure FB has some branding guidelines and corporate use policy right?

That aside, I took a look at Ms Ng’s page and I think she’s doing a good job of communicating to her audience. She used to be a journalist so that helps plenty.

Ultimately, people have to remember that in this strange new world, one has to lead double, parallel lives in both the real physical world and in cyberspace. Reputations are built in both simultaneously, and it requires enormous effort for one to maintain consistency across both platforms. It’s easy to say “I’m engaged with social media”, and like I mentioned, it’s another thing to actually do it.

Politicians and candidates who think they are doing well on the Internet, vis-a-vis their daily walkabouts, ought to think hard about what “doing well” really means in the virtual space.

What is really sad, is that so many of them refuse to engage the audience one on one in the comments space, preferring to assume that there’s no point arguing against The Horde. Their silence just makes the crowd even more upset, leading to the perception that “They don’t care about what we think.”

Just let us know you mean what you say, and that you’re willing to discuss it and persuade us. That is the simple essence of leadership and influence.

And it does help to be liked – the traditional way, or the Facebook way.

Nicole Seah and Public Opinion

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In my last posting, I mentioned that so many local politicians and political candidates lacked charisma, or a simple measure of “likeability”. Since then, a new Opposition candidate has burst onto the scene with oodles of charisma, simply by being herself.

Yes, 24-year-old Nicole Seah is the talk of the town this week, and I’m impressed (along with just about everyone who has seen her debut press conference) at how she’s hitting nearly all the right notes from the get-go. Not because she has a nice-looking profile picture, mind you, but she really carried herself well during that debut event.

You can see that video here:

(BTW, Razor TV, you really ought to stop using Flash video, you realize how many people are using mobile devices that don’t run Flash? And it’s not just Apple products!)

I’ve been observing her phenomenal growth in online popularity over the past two days.

Most Popular Candidate Online?

My friends have been busy sharing the above Nicole Seah video with their Twitter/FB networks frequently (along with very positive sentiments), and she’s probably gotten more visibility than all the new political candidates combined. A homebrew comparison video between Ms Seah and PAP’s Ms Tin Pei Ling (you know, the other young candidate in town) has already popped up.

Both ladies will be contesting in the Marine Parade constituency as part of a larger group of candidates.

My wife pointed out that Ms Seah is adding fans on her Facebook page at an amazing rate. It jumped from 9,000+ people to 14,000+ in just one day this weekend. You know, it took me several months to get our Xbox Facebook page to several thousand people!Ms Tin currently has about 2500 FB fans on her public profile page and it’s growing a lot more slowly.

At the same time, the mainstream media (or maybe it’s just The Straits Times, since I don’t really read the other papers or watch Channelnewsasia regularly) has been slow, or perhaps reluctant to give coverage to Ms. Seah.

What People Want To Read Vs….

Whether it’s government intervention to prevent the mainstream media coverage from skewing their coverage (why, surely people want to read what the ministers have to say about their policies and pre-election financial handouts!) or simply self-censorship, it’s just another disappointing aspect of our local media coverage of the elections. Until I’m proven wrong of course.

Mind you, while the rest of the population goes on with their own lives during this campaigning period, the media is actually in overdrive. Most of the journos in the newsroom are being mobilized, whether they like politics or not, to prepare for action during Nomination Day, Polling Day and all the rallies/walkabouts in between.

I remember we used to create big picture charts so that the non-political beat reporters could learn to recognize the various MPs and new candidates, so you know, you could tell Ah Kow from Ah Ngeow, and who’s that young retired army general anyway?

Yet all this tiring editorial work is pointless if editors don’t realize what people want to read about.To their credit, they do try to find out, but by the time they get a tipoff, get a journalist to do the story and get it published, it’s probably several days after people stopped talking about the topic. But there are things that I’d like to read….

For example, I don’t care to read another long boring full-page profile interview on a new candidate.

  • I want to read what REAL people are thinking about the new candidates! How do people know the candidates are worth voting for when all they have to judge is  their brief media appearances?
  • Why has no newspaper commented or run stories on the odd way the former Chief Of Army speaks? (As an NSmen, it’s my national duty to keep harping on this issue)
  • I want to know what young couples think of Mah Bow Tan’s defence of his HDB “asset enhancement” policy. Is public housing a market for asset play or affordable housing for citizens?
  • I want to know why the singlehood columnists love to talk about their navel-gazing lifestyles and newfound boyfriends but don’t dare to talk about why they like one party’s candidates over the other.

Sure, I could read people’s opinion of candidates online, but why do I pay for the papers then? To read political quotes written by incompetent or jaded speechwriters? Seriously, have you listened or read any political speech these past few weeks that made you feel inspired about anything? There’s a business opportunity for talented speechwriters in Singapore and I’m sure journos would love to transcribe better prose.

With that mini rant over, my point here is that there’s now a very clear awareness plus measurement of

  • What traditional media want people to read (which is perceived by many people to equate to what the Gahmen want people to know about)
  • What people actually want to read, and that’s what they are actively sharing online.

What people want to read does not necessarily correlate to how the people vote, mind you, but I personally see Ms Seah’s appearance as a watershed moment in comparing media production and consumption in the local context.

Why Nicole Seah Is Doing It Right

Also, why are people “liking” and verbally supporting Ms Seah so much? Even though they don’t even know how capable she is?

To be realistic, the odds are completely stacked against her. (I can say so because I’m not in her voting district, so I can’t possibly vote for or against her.)

She joined the National Solidarity Party, which has never been much in the public radar. (Heck, I don’t even know any other NSP candidate besides her. I do know they have a cool slogan “Yes We Ken” on their polo shirts)

Her GRC group is up against Senior Minister Goh Chok Tong’s team, and any pragmatic Singaporean will tell you there’s little extra the NSP can offer versus his team. And she has little grassroots experience, which is what many people need to have as some form of evidence of future political capability (I don’t subscribe to such ideas though)

So to say that people like her because she’s an “underdog” kind of misses the point, as rooting for her is unlikely to result in the results that NSP desires. If I’m going to vote for an underdog, he or she better have an actual chance of winning despite the odds (eg. Rocky Balboa versus Ivan Drago). Sorry guys, I’m being a wet blanket here, but you know reality like I do.

What’s working for her (and not so much her party), is that Ms Seah is so far the only new candidate who’s really just being herself in public, and whether she knows it or not, that’s great execution in public relations. In my stint as a PR guy, I’ve always emphasized this to my colleagues - the best public relations you can do is just being completely natural in front of an audience.

It’s so simple to say, but so difficult for many people to do. Most people believe they need to put on some fake public persona, along with an affected way of speaking (refer back to former Chief of Army), hoping that people will give you the respect because you are speaking “like a leader”. What rubbish. Many companies, and I’m sure the Gahmen too, put their executives through media training which often teaches the wrong speaking skills.

Yes, you need to do your homework, your rehearsals, and learn how to make eye contact. But even more important is that when your public speaking opportunity begins, you are able to chuck aside all the technicalities and let your speech flow naturally with your own personal touch.

Talk to people, not talk at people lah.

What People Really Want To See

Ms Seah’s appearance and initial public performance has probably added a new headache to the PAP’s election strategy. Ms Tin has gotten mostly negative comments from the socialsphere (my term to replace the old “blogosphere”) and the choice to select her keeps backfiring on the Marine Parade team.

SM Goh recently commented in the Straits Times:

SENIOR Minister Goh Chok Tong urged voters in Marine Parade GRC to compare the People’s Action Party’s five-member team and the opposition’s National Solidarity Party, rather than focus on the two youngest woman candidates. The PAP’s Tin Pei Ling, 27, and NSP’s Miss Nicole Seah, 24, have been the targets of netizens since they were fielded for the coming elections. ’I am the leader of Team Marine Parade. I have four other very strong members in team Marine Parade. Likewise, you should look at NSP as a team,’ said SM Goh during a walkabout of the constituency with his fellow GRC candidates on Saturday morning.

Look, you don’t need to tell us that. We’re intelligent voters, you know.

But the PAP started it by putting someone who was a political hot potato in the limelight, without truly understanding how the socialsphere would dissect her profile and agenda.

And Ms Tin’s backers need to realize that public opinion is like this – why focus on issues we cannot fully influence (eg. cost of goods, housing, monetary policy etc) when we can sit back and watch an entertaining showdown between two young female candidates? When was the last time we had such an opportunity?

Most people don’t care to read long rambling intellectual (or pseudo-intellectual) stories, they prefer to read about gossipy stuff. In a sea of super-successful, multitasking, policy-touting but really quite boring personalities, people are obviously starving for some entertaining characters. (You can also tell that my tabloid newspaper background is kicking in :D )

So far, Ms Seah seems to grasp how Facebook works, with simple updates and frequent, honest responses to comments. I already see groupie-style comments on her page. It’s really that simple – in an age where it’s no longer scalable to do walkabouts and hope to engage as many voters as your time and feet will allow, politicians and personalities need to realize the rallying or media pressure methods of the 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s, and Noughties no longer work as effectively.

Today, the speed (some say shallowness) of social media allows likeable people to become even more liked at astounding speed. And for disliked people to drown in an ever increasing chorus of public rejection.

It’s possibly confounding to a senior politician that he can reach out to, or anger, hundreds of thousands of people online in a blink of an eye, but it’s happening and the natural response of many political creatures is to say “Let’s ignore the online chatter, it’s not important. Let’s continue what we’ve always been doing.”

And then leave the Facebooking to some amateur administrators who have never been trained in public communications.

But even if you win the final vote, the reputation that you build during this critical period becomes permanently embedded in people’s minds. Whether Ms Seah wins or not at the polls is not the issue. At this point, she’s already won the war of public opinion and this is something Ms Tin will have to grapple with for the rest of her political career.

Thoughts before the elections

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I’ve long considered myself politically apathetic, or cynical, because much of what goes on in the political sphere does not warrant my immediate attention. I have better things to think about, like for example, how to do the airbrushing right on my Space Battleship Yamato, or disciplining myself to practice on the violin more regularly.

Unfortunately, during this period as the country gears up for the General Elections, everyone suddenly becomes a political expert and deems himself/herself an excellent character judge of each and every candidate. It’s impossible to ignore the talk of the town, and I’m really more interested in how candidates are pitching themselves, rather than the content of the pitches (of course, I do care about the crazy HDB pricing).

I’ve had the fortune (some say misfortune) of covering the last two elections in the capacity of a journalist who had no choice. The entire newsroom is usually mobilized for this critical activity. A lot of work goes unpublished, but I did have a colorful time on the ground.

I followed a plucky PAP candidate for a day or two in Hougang and found out that grassroots work was a real marathon (especially during this season). The candidate lost, but he did so graciously and that was a real inspiration to me. I saw other candidates of various caliber and quite a few make a fool of themselves at their rallies.

More importantly, when I looked at the crowds at the political rallies, I saw how much Singaporeans felt helpless in being able to make a change in what kind of government they were going to get, whether they could vote or not. You could see it on their faces. Yes, they would heckle and cheer at the rally, but only for a momentary satisfaction then they would trudge home.

This elections is quite a bit different, thanks to the Internet and social media. Sure, we’ve had Internet for over a decade now, but it was only in recent years that real and meaningful networks formed with the help of Facebook and Twitter. I sound like a broken record, but hey, I’ve got something new to say, which is….

What was not obvious to the people or candidates in previous elections, has become suddenly, and painfully obvious:

1. Your rhetoric can be torn apart in mere minutes.

There are plenty of idiots on the Internet, but there is no shortage of smart people too. Over the past few weeks, I’ve been reading various posts like this that are both heartfelt and well thought out. In the past, with only the one way channel of the mainstream media, there was only so much that the public could respond on what ministers and candidates say.

Today, the public can analyse, dissect, and deconstruct your rhetoric in mere minutes, and then spread their opinion on the Internet far faster than you can blink. It’s not that the youth of today like to “talk back” (a measure of disrespect in Asian societies), it’s just that now your logic and rationale are open for people to discuss and determine where your true agenda is.

A few posts ago, I was asking people not to judge the 27-year-old PAP  candidate Tin Pei Ling too much until she had more chance to communicate or prove her worth.

Unfortunately, the more she speaks or writes, the more her reputation drops.

She recently posted a long-winded and ultimately empty piece on care for the elderly. The whole posting goes to pieces the minute she starts off with “Eldercare is destiny.” You know, for all the praise that your senior comrades are piling on you, you ought to learn how to write better.

2. It’s clear when you have no charisma.

It’s not difficult to spot people with charisma, whether in real life or through the media. Unfortunately, so many of our politicians and candidates lack charisma, it’s appalling.

When I say charisma, I don’t mean some sort of polished executive charm, I just mean “likeable”. It’s important for politicians to be likeable if they want the people to vote for them (such a basic requirement right?). Folks like Lim Swee Say and Khaw Boon Wan have great charisma, and it shows within minutes of meeting them.

Many people are hard workers and can do many things that they’ve promised the people, but I personally demand that if you want to pull that sort of authority and earn the high pay of a minister or MP in Singapore, you need to be a real leader that attract people to support you, not repulse people. I could name a few ministers who elicit a groan every time they speak from a script, but I’m feeling nice today.

Personally, I’m surprised that a former Chief of Army speaks like this.

3. Mainstream media is now under heavy scrutiny for colored coverage or editing.

I’ve had a ST Forum letter that was badly edited before it was published. Having edited news stories and forum letters in my time, I can tell you it’s not easy to retain the spirit of the original copy and have to work within the tight newsprint space. But hey, if you can’t retain the author’s original intention, you shouldn’t publish his letter at all.

You can read the most recent saga of how the same letter was edited poorly in ST and published more intact in Today. This is why it’s great to have newspaper competition in Singapore, it’s this sort of stuff that is both funny (to ex-media people) and sobering (to just about everyone else) at the same time.

The mainstream media has also pumped up their coverage of opposition folks this year. (Actually, I also suspect that the Opposition are more savvy at manipulating the media these days, unlike the old days where JBJ refused to talk to local media) . They don’t have much choice – if they don’t cover it, people will accuse them of all sorts of bias. Even the Gahmen has to allow this – there is no more monopoly on information. Ex TNP and Today editor PN Balji had a great insight on this.

4. Everyone’s just very bad at using social media.

The PAP must be wondering why their Facebook page has not seen a huge increase of fans (it’s about 12K now, and was 11.5K a few weeks ago) despite their grassroots base. Well, it’s because they keep spamming people’s walls daily with unnecessary pictures of walkabouts and other unimportant information! I did a quick check on a few other FB pages of the other Opposition groups and they’re sad in their own right. I refuse to re-join because I prefer to be spam-free.

The admins just don’t know how to post or create original content that fosters discussion and debate. It’s like the elections came around and everyone decided “Oh let’s get on Facebook and Twitter!” without understanding the nuances of communicating on such a critical platform. Well, you guys should have started years ago to understand how to exploit these FREE platforms, but it’s a bit too late. Just goes to show how little our political creatures understand about how people are communicating to each other these days online.

And I say again – Internet chatter is not always “noise” as the Gahmen might claim. Just because you don’t get to hear most of what people are saying (as it is all locked behind Facebook’s privacy walls) doesn’t mean the chatter is not going to help to swing opinion, and more importantly, votes.